From Prototype to “Cutting Steel” in 90 Days

I first joined Team Fluidity with the FT Aviator still in the prototype phase of its product lifecycle. I am excited about the rapid progress we’ve made and am happy to report that our manufacturing efforts for the FT Aviator are on track, as we continue to drive toward delivery in February 2019!

Product Quality: Collaborating with our manufacturing partners, we executed a rigorous design failure mode effects analysis (FMEA) and design for manufacturing (DFM) process, which resulted in dozens of improvements to the FT Aviator’s design. These improvements have helped optimize sourcing, molding, assembly and test, while mitigating risks to quality and reliability. As a result, we’ve locked the design and have moved forward with our injection mold tool fabrication and sourcing of electronic components. We anticipate conducting our first article inspections (FAI’s) of the plastics and printed circuit board assemblies in mid-December and are working diligently to develop the test equipment and ready the assembly line to produce our first qualification units in late December. The qualification units will go through extensive reliability testing to verify the design as well as manufacturing testing to verify the assembly and customer use test to verify the customer experience.

Customer Experience: I’ve spent 23 years in high tech supply chain operations and transitioning hundreds of enterprise-class storage and server products to manufacturers and markets around the globe. This is the first time in my career that verifying the customer experience meant getting outside and flying drones – I think I could get used to this! In addition to extensive flight testing, units from this lot will also be sent out for testing at independent labs to ensure we have met all of the required regulatory and compliance directives domestically and internationally.

What’s Next: The month of January will be dedicated to finalizing the product, processes, and getting ready for the official release of the FT Aviator in February. We would not be where we are today without the amazing team work, commitment, and expertise of our design and manufacturing partners. Thanks so much to our partners and backers for believing in the product and supporting us on this journey.

Keith Brooks

Keith is a proven leader and manager, with more than 20 years of experience in global supply chain engineering and operations, delivering measurable results for multi-billion-dollar hardware and software businesses. Keith has led large cross-functional teams globally, managing budgets of $10 million and more, and has directed management of operations at the top four Tier 1 EMS providers.

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